August 2016 - AMCA Europe

AMCA EUROPEAN CHAPTER NEWSLETTER
August 2016
Hello AMCA Europe Members,
This month we have reports on the UK Banbury Run and
the Wauseon Meet, then review the two books I bought
at Raalte. There is something of a Cannonball Run
flavour in this edition, and I hope we will have reports on
the run itself next time.
evening when I saw a 1936 VL in an art shop and found
Sharon Jacobs, co-owner and Cannonball rider, who told
me of her experiences riding the bike in the last Run.
Well done, and good luck to her in the forthcoming
Cannonball on her 1915 Harley. Of course it was then a
short trip to Sturgis, where we visited the Motorcycle
Museum ($10 admission). It is an all-makes museum
and I would guess relatively new, so they are making the
best of what they could find. Here is one of those 'plain
Banbury Run
On 19 June, Pete Reeves rode his recently restored
1915 Harley twin to the Banbury Run, where the British
VMCC had about 600 pre-1931 bikes participating.
Here's a picture of him on the left with Paul de Orleans,
US motorcycle journalist and fellow Cannonball
competitor, at the Run:
Jane' 1944 knuckleheads I like so much:
With only about 500 built (and only 200 in 1943), these
are the tough ones to find for completists looking for a
knucklehead from every production year. Also in the
museum was a very rare factory-chromed Harley
Panhead, which I saw was on loan from AMCA Director
Rick Najera. Rick is among many members loaning
quality bikes to museums, so kudos to all for that.
Pete is a Deputy Chief Judge for our Club, and cannot
help but build a 'points bike' suitable for AMCA judging.
However, after the 240 mile test run he told me the
lovely Troxel saddle will appear in the Cannonball
photos but will be replaced with something more
comfortable for his 4,000 mile ride across the US...
Wauseon
I took my wife on a two week touring holiday before the
show, as the price to pay for her having to endure three
days of a bunch of older guys talking about rivets in a
field. We were in Main Street, Deadwood SD one
I went down the road to pay my respects to Lonnie Isam
Sr in his shop, and found him working on a beautiful
1930 Indian Four with the one-year aluminium tanks. He
was also starting on a small batch of replica 1911 Harley
twins which I'm sure will find a ready market.
Lonnie was also preparing a Cannonball bike for his son,
and had found a 1915 Harley single with the first year
three speed gearbox. A disc brake, alloy drop centre
wheel rims, modern tyres, LED lights, and a good
running in period mean this is a bike we should see at
the finish line.
Then it was time for my photo opportunity in front of
Sturgis Harley:
I turned to my wife and told her that must be a hand shift
Indian 648, and Jay would thrash him with the Harley
KR.
After five close fought laps, Roeder opened it up on the
final straight to nudge ahead and take the chequered
flag. I later found out he was riding a specially prepared
80 cubic inch bike, so it looks like the legendary
Springsteen on the Harley 45 has still got what it takes.
The last race of the night was the hand shift final, with
some 16 bikes expected on the grid:
They have discovered that the secret of profitable
trading is not to bother with the motorcycles, and my wife
and I were asked three times if we needed assistance in
the time it took to walk half way across the shop to the
$55 ladies Tee shirts. We beat a hasty retreat and went
on to the Wauseon Meet.
Arriving Friday morning 15 July, I found as expected that
the 1930-36 Harley-Davidson Big Twin was the featured
bike of the show, and with a VL engine on the back of
the Meet Tee-shirt that was another one for my
collection. Weather was excellent throughout the
weekend, say low eighties Fahrenheit, 28 Celsius and
dry. I did some mild shopping among the sold out 800
vendor spots, and was able to find some rare trinkets to
help finish the two restorations in the shop.
Friday night was the half mile dirt track racing, and I
managed to find a seat right by the start/finish line just a
few rows back. Imagine my surprise when a
feature/grudge match was put on between Jay
Springsteen and George Roeder Jr. Here they are
coming away from the start line:
They were incredibly mismatched, with a 1920s
Excelsior taking on Indian racers, Harley knuckleheads
and panheads, but no-one had told the riders as they
broadsided into the first corner. With such a crowded
field there were a couple of spills, but it ended up with
Roeder taking the win in this match too - that guy is a
hard charging rider. What a spectacle, and the icing on
the cake for another great Wauseon Meet!
Saturday morning meant two hours in the Chapter
Presidents Meeting, and with the Club up to 70 Chapters
that meant meeting new people. The agenda covered
Insurance, Liability Form, Judging Disclaimer,
Trademark use, and IRS tax reporting, and these had
been done before enough times that the coverage was
pretty slick.
We found out the Barber Meet on Memorial Day
weekend had made a small loss because of lack of
public attendance, despite many vendors, and the Board
were considering whether to give it another shot.
Out in the meet, I recalled we had one of those rare
1920s Neracars at our Raalte Meet, then saw these nine
in a row at Wauseon, hmm.
Sunday morning it was time for judging, and I saw (as at
Oley) that Richard Spagnolli was among the judges and
Fred Davis was helping manage the paperwork. It's
good to see our Directors participating in what Rocky
Halter once called 'the technical heartbeat of the Club'. I
was leading the VL team, and we went through half a
dozen bikes, often with the owner in the team, with very
satisfactory results. By the afternoon we were done, and
it was time for me to jump in the rental car to Chicago for
the usual overnight flight into London after great three
days.
Books
Here's what I thought of the two books I bought at our
Raalte International Meet:
In the afternoon, Chief Judge Don Dzurick held a well
attended outdoor seminar on judging original paint bikes.
There was concern that our system was encouraging
owners to 'improve' unrestored bikes to advance through
the judging system, thus altering originality in pursuit of
trophies. Good suggestions were made, with the most
popular being that some points allowance be made
based on age, so that unrestored bikes could more
easily jump the hurdles leading to Winners Circle.
A dozen VLs were racked up in the display field for a
Chapter award, followed by the Field Games which
always draws a crowd to see expert riding skills.
Since reading the new Excelsior history book (see later),
I've had a yen for a Henderson four cylinder bike, which
would need to be a KJ in view of my period of interest. I
sat on this 1931 KL Cannonball bike, with the owners'
permission, and it had that long wheelbase VL feel which
I like:
The Motorcycle in the Early Twentieth Century by
Aldo Carrer
Saturday night we had the well-attended banquet, with
three members from the new Australian Chapter
showing just how keen are our new pals to be part of the
AMCA.
Italian AMCA member Aldo has taken another trawl through his
massive collection of early photographs and postcards to bring us
about 350 pictures of motorcycles, mostly from the period 1900-1905.
The pictures are grouped by country, with France, Germany, Austria,
England, Italy, USA and Rest of the World getting separate chapters. I
counted 60 different makes in these pioneer years, few surviving past
the next dozen years. There is a great 1896 picture of a proud owner
with his new Hildebrand and Wolfmüller, then rarities such as Adler,
Alcyon, Andru, BAT, Borgo, Buchet, Clement, Griffon, Hercules, Kerry,
Laurin & Klement, Lilliput, Marsh, Minerva, Orient, Quadrant, Roselli,
Sarolea, Wanderer, Yale and many others.
Motorcycle designers of the time could not even agree where to put the
engine, and many weird and wonderful machines saw the light of day
in this period. The pictures are generally not artists impressions or
brochure pictures, but real bikes in service during a period when they
were still very much a novelty. The book will fascinate anyone
interested in the pioneer days of motorcycling and, should you be lucky
enough to own a survivor, you should find pictures of the same or
similar bikes taken when they were nearly new.
Format: Hard cover 216 pages, about 350 photographs. Size 8.75" x
12 " (approx A4) ISBN 978-88-99369-02-6. Price 39 euros plus
postage from oldbike1@virgilio.it.
articles may in some cases be familiar, but there are some stunning
glass plate negative photos which bear close study. The colorized
cover photo from May 1913 has been retrieved from the Utah Historical
Society, and shows several wagon loads of Excelsiors being unloaded
at a Salt Lake City Dealership. The definition is sufficient that we can
read the engine numbers painted on the crates, and many other period
photographs will also reward detailed study.
The authors put Frederick Robie as the 'father of Excelsior' when he
moved out of the typewriter business into motorcycles around 1907.
George Meiser was the first designer, with a Thor based design
evolving into a fresh product. But financial problems ensued, with
bicycle magnate Ignaz Schwinn buying out the company in late 1911
and running it until 1931, later on with the help of son Frank. Racing
success in the mid-teens brought the company up to second position in
the market behind Indian, but then Harley's entry into racing and the
Great War pushed them back to number three. In the 1920s, Schwinn
absorbed and developed Henderson, but US motorcycle demand
entered a long decline thanks to the availability of inexpensive cars,
and the Excelsior corporation pushed exports while selling four cylinder
bikes for law enforcement. The Super-X introduction of 1925 gave a
burst of competition success in hill-climbing, and jolted Harley and
Indian into producing equivalent machines. But all the time Schwinn
was running the company as a business, and the early years after the
1929 Wall Street Crash caused him to give upon motorcycles and go
back to bicycles.
I bought my copy of this book from Thomas Bund at our European
National Meet, and he told me it was not intended as a money making
project, but as a labor of love and a way that two enthusiasts could put
information across the world to other enthusiasts. Only 400 copies
have been printed, and it costs 149 euros and weighs eight pounds to
mail, but anyone interested in Excelsior, Henderson, or the history of
American motorcycling will want to read it.
Format: Hard cover 448 pages, about 1000 illustrations. Size 11.25" x
12.5". ISBN 978-3-00-050680-2. Price 149 euros plus post from
www.american-x.org.
2016 AMCA National Meets
August 5-7 Yankee Chapter, Hebron, CT
September 30–Oct 01 Chesapeake Chapter, Jefferson,
PA
2016 AMCA National Road Runs
American Excelsior, the History of Excelsior, Super X and
Henderson Motorcycles by Thomas Bund and Robert Turek.
This monster book is the first full English language history of the
named makes, and represents a trans-Atlantic cooperation between
AMCA members in Germany and the USA. The structure of the book
interleaves several themes. First we have a chronological account,
starting way back in 1860 with the birth of Ignaz Schwinn in Germany
and finishing in 1931 when Schwinn pulled out of the motorcycle
business, but adding a coda for the 1993-99 Henderson-Excelsior
revival. Then we have sections on the racing and record setting
activities of the organisation, divided into various phases as
enthusiasm waxed and waned in the company. In addition we have
biographies of the main actors in the management of the various
companies making Excelsior and other brand motorcycles, plus notes
on the lives of the men who raced the bikes and some technical
history.
The 448 page book has around 1000 illustrations, many of which I had
not seen before. The copies of product brochures and newspaper
September 6-8 Roosevelt Chapter, Detroit Lakes, MN
September 25-28 Blue Ridge Chapter, Ashville, NC
October 3-5 Sunflower Chapter, Junction City, KS
Other 2016 Events
Germany
Oct 07-09, Veterama, Mannheim. Biggest European
swap meet. www.veterama.de.
Netherlands
Aug 13-15 Old Timers Rally, Den Haag. Fiftieth
anniversary of this meet for pre-1966 American
motorcycles. www.hdctheoldtimers.nl
Sep 02-04. Alemite Run, Beuningen. www.alemitemotoren.nl.
Switzerland. Sandra Froehlich, sandra@mcsands.ch
Bobbers. Paul Jung, pjung@wwag.com
United Kingdom
Sep 02-04 Beaulieu/Netley Marsh, two biggest UK swap
meets, near Southampton
Please volunteer if you would like to be representative
for a country not mentioned. You just need to know what
bike-related events take place in your country, and
answer occasional Email questions.
Oct 15-16. Stafford show and auction
European Chapter Directors 2016/17
Steve Slocombe*, President, amcaeurope@aol.com
57 Wear Bay Road, Folkestone CT19 6PU, England.
+44.1303.256266.
Don’t forget to renew your subscriptions at
www.antiquemotorcycle.org
And keep me up to date if you change Email address.
Vice President, Adri van Groningen, adrivang@tiscali.nl
The next newsletter will probably be in October, with a
report on the Goodwood Revival Meet. Please continue
to let me have your contributions.
Martin van Kuijk, Treasurer, amcaeurope@gmail.com
Wishing you safe and happy riding, and best regards,
Peter Reeves, Assistant Chief Judge,
peter.reeves@virgin.net
Steve Slocombe,
President AMCA European Chapter
Jan van der Werff*, Director, jan.vander.werff@hetnet.nl
Chris Bastiaansen*, Director,
chrisbastiaansen@hotmail.com (Belgium)
Paul Jung, Director, pjung@wwag.com
Country Representatives
In addition to those Directors marked with asterisks (*)
above, we also have the following country
representatives:
Denmark. Michael Pedersen,
michael_pedersen76@hotmail.com.
Finland. Fiskis Ekman, fiskis@kolumbus.fi
France. Stuart Graham, harleyman3@wanadoo.fr
Germany. Claudia Krause, amca.europe@aol.de
Latvia. Juris Ramba, ramoto1992@gmail.com
Spain. Enrique Castells, e_castells@yahoo.es
Sweden. Stefan Olovsson, stefan.indian@telia.com